


Her Name Was Éponine

by Vive_la_republique



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:25:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6438973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vive_la_republique/pseuds/Vive_la_republique





	Her Name Was Éponine

She stands there, alone, merely a shadow in the Musain's back room. The rest of the room is cheerful and bustling, everyone passing around guns and making ammunition packs with far too much gusto for any sane person. She notices Marius right away, in there with the rest of them, although he doesn't seem as excited. Probably dreaming about his Cosette. He doesn't even notice the shadow girl standing right behind him as he and his friends prepare for their revolution. 

She isn't surprised. 

When she's accepted the fact that he will probably not notice her existence for a good hour, she directs her attention towards the other boy next to him, the one giving orders in a commanding voice. She's seen this boy before, ranting to the poor about injustice as he stands on a rickety wooden platform and waves inflammatory pamphlets. She's ended up on the outskirts of the crowd more than a few times, even though she doesn't believe any of the speeches will make any difference. 

But this boy is so different, so idealistic, so starry-eyed in a world where hope and naïveté is crushed almost instantly under the feet of the cares. He cares too much, in a world where not caring is what keeps you alive. He makes eye contact with each listener throughout his speech, drawing them in and making each one feel special. It feels like he cares about each individual in the crowd. He draws her attention in a way not even Marius can, and that's no small feat. 

She doesn't know why he's so captivating. He looks like a Greek god, sure, but she never falls for the beautiful people. Behind those high cheekbones, that marble skin, those terrifyingly blue eyes, that head of pure golden curls, behind all that there must be something else. Something to compensate for the glory of his outer shell. Beauty breeds danger. She learned that much from Montparnasse. Better to fall in love with an adorably awkward boy who's the sweetest person ever on the inside than a glorified, dandified man with no soul. 

She isn't quite sure the first option is better, if she were really forced to think about it. It's hard to hate Marius for his love for the Lark, no matter how hard she tries. She's never had trouble despising Montparnasse, even back when she was a silly little waif of 15, foolish enough to think she was in love with a killer. 

She's not struck by his ideas or the ways he expects to carry them out. In fact, she thinks they're absolutely ridiculous. This rich boy thinks he can come in and save the city of Paris with a few makeshift walls of chairs and some loaded muskets. He thinks forty people make an army, and he's willing to put himself in the line of fire for people he's never met. In a city where self-preservation rules, he's not going to get much sympathy. Most Parisians only care about getting their next meal and a couple coins, not high-minded students trying to bring them democracy. What good does democracy do when you're starving to death and your creditors are looming? 

No, what really gets her is the fact that he believes. He believes in every word he says. He believes and he fights and he yells and he cares in a way almost foreign to her. How could anyone have such passion, such energy, such a will to fight all the time? She can barely summon up the power to do anything anymore. Paris sucks her will to live away. The city kills her, but it seems to strengthen him. 

She can't help but wonder if his power is only an illusion. If the city is just waiting for a chance to crush his soul the way it crushes the rest of its inhabitants at birth. She doesn't think she really wants to know. 

He looks up at that moment, and their eyes lock. His gaze almost burns her with its sheer intensity, so she runs away, far away, down the stairs and out of the building and into the seedier part of Paris, until she feels far enough away from his searing eyes. 

She does not see him again until she follows Marius to the barricade and gets shot. 

•••••••••••••••••••••••

She lies in Marius's lap, the rain dripping down her face. Once upon a time, she would have reached up to wipe the droplets away, but she's been shot in the stomach-and there's blood, so much blood, she's not a fool, she knows she can't make it-so there's really no point anymore. Marius's words fade in and out of her ears, her gaze is blurry and she keeps losing focus. Hold on to what you can, she tells herself. What you do or don't remember can hardly hurt you now. For some reason, this strikes her as funny, and she starts laughing only to start choking on her own blood. That makes everything much too real for comfort. 

With the little time she has left, she looks for her brother, the dirty street urchin who thinks he's already a man, hoping he's gone away and saved himself. The only person she can see is the blond-haired leader. Her wide, chocolate-brown eyes meet his crystal-blue ones, and she gasps involuntarily, his stare just as searing as before. Marius sees where she's looking, and motions the other man over before she can tell him no. 

He leans over the pair of them, and Éponine realizes how pathetic she must look right now, a bloody waif of a thing in rags on Marius's lap. But he doesn't flinch. He just looks at her for a second, then kneels. "Who are you?" He asks. "When the Republic rises, we will tell your story, how you martyred yourself for the cause, but we cannot if we do not know who you are." 

She merely smiles. It may seem pathetic, but he cares about her and who she is more than anyone but Marius has in a long time. "My name is unimportant," she whispers. "Just tell them that I wasn't scared to go. Tell them I laughed in the face of death. Please." The last word comes out strangled, and soon enough she's crying, but he doesn't look away. He brushes a lock of dark hair out of her face and says, "The world will remember you. Don't worry." He smiles at her, a real smile, and leaves her with Marius. 

It's not all that much later that her body goes limp in Marius's arms, her eyes clouded with the pall of death but a smile still on her lips. She will be remembered. She will not die in the hearts of those revolutionaries here, or in the hearts of those revolutionaries to come. Yes, there will be revolutionaries to come. People will fight and people will die, but eventually people will rise. 

"Let freedom ring" is her final thought. 

Thanks to a golden boy in a red coat, she finally learns how to believe. 

"Her name was Éponine, her life was cold and dark, yet she was unafraid..."


End file.
